Immigration Bars 20 Nigerians from Travelling over Poor Documentation

By Chinedu Eze

The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) has barred not less than 20 Nigerians from travelling overseas because of poor and unconvincing documentation about their destination.

The travellers were stopped from travelling last week at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.

Meanwhile, the NIS command at the MMIA command received another mentally challenged female Nigerian, Ms. Motunde Oluwatobi Victoria, 29, from Saudi Arabia.

A source close to the command disclosed to THISDAY on Wednesday that most of those stopped from travelling out failed to give tangible reasons for wanting to travel out of the country and could not give details of their travels.

The source said that most of those stopped could not provide documents to support their claims while it was observed that some of them used travel agents to perfect their papers to travel out of the country by all means.

The source said that thorough interrogations by immigration personnel stopped these travellers from soiling the image of the country abroad, adding that most of such travellers end up returning to Nigeria with complicated medical and health issues.

The source advised those willing to travel out of the country by all means to get proper education on job availabilities in any country they intend to go and should have deep knowledge about such environment, remarking that most of them are not knowledgeable about their travel plans.

However, the command reunited a mentally-challenged female Nigerian, Motunde, with her family members at the airport yesterday.

It was gathered that Motunde who had been in Saudi Arabia since 2018 and engaged as a house maid in Saudi Arabia, returned aboard Egypt Air at 1:30pm on Tuesday with incoherent speech, which prompted the command to search for her family members through the social media and were able to locate her immediate elder sister, Ms. Titilope Deborah Babatunde.

Also, Motunde’s sister, Titilope, commended officials of the NIS at the airport for reuniting her with her sister.

“I am very grateful to the Immigration Service, MMIA Command for reuniting me with my sister. Initially when I received the call, I concluded that it was a scammer at work. What immigration has done has further reinvigorated my belief about Nigeria. It shows that to some extent, we are still secure in Nigeria. If not for the immigration, I will not know that my sister has been brought back to Nigeria. We will still think she was in Saudi Arabia,” she said.